As I'm typing this up, I'm just hearing news of the bomb blasts in London. As you may know, I'm a Brit. It looks as if a lot of people could have been killed. My sympathies are obviously with all those who have suffered. There's not a lot you can say in the face of horror. At the end of the last blog I rather played down how ill I was feeling. In fact, I was shitting liquid and felt like death warmed up. As I result, I lost a few days feeling unwell, which means that I haven't visited as many places in Madagascar as I intended. Eventually, I decided to do something about my illness. I went to a chemist and bought Ciprofloxacine, which is a powerful and expensive anti-biotic over the counter. All ... read more

Botswana at independence was one of the poorest countries in the world. It's now one of the richest countries in Africa. It's democratic and politically stable. It's fortunes were transformed by the discovery of diamonds near Orapa in 1967. Botswana's biggest problem is AIDS - 36 percent of young adults are infected. It's a vast country with a tiny population and large pristine wildernesses. The most spectacular of the wildernesses is the Okavango Delta. The waters of the Okavango river spread out, to be swallowed eventually by the sands of the Kalahari desert. The delta is a vast 15,000 km maze of lagoons, channels and islands. I camped in the delta, traveling across the shallow waters in a mokoro - a shallow dugout canoe. The area is protected, we couldn't wash properly for several days as ... read more

The first photo on the right was Nelson Mandela's cell for 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment on Robben Island. It's tiny. Mandela is a tall man, so he couldn't sleep straight in the cell. The tour of Robben Island is a must see attraction from Cape Town. Along with the Sector 6 Museum. Sector 6 was a multi racial inner city district of Cape Town. It's very existence was living proof of the nonsense of apartheid fascistic social engineering. So, the apartheid authorities bulldozed the whole area, and moved the population out onto the sands of the Cape Flats. Robben island is now a world heritage site and a tourist trap. But it is a very good tour. All the tour guides are themselves ex-political prisoners, and have harrowing tales to tell of the ... read more

I've noticed, that a negative strap line seems to get more visits to my blogs! Give the punters what they want! Whilst I've been here in Cameroon, the student protests have been a major news story. University students have been protesting about increases in student fees and inadequate facilities, including a lack of toilets. On April 27th the military and riot police invaded the campus of Buea University. They shot dead 2 unarmed students. The government has promised an inquiry. There's more coverage of this story at: IRINnew.org and at http://ambazonia.indymedia.org Cameroon, as a tourist destination has it all. Beach resorts, rain forests teeming with wildlife including lions, traditional villages clinging to rocky cliffs, and the regions tallest mountain. Poverty But, I wasn't in the country in the tourist season. I was here during the rain ... read more

Niger, Il fait chaud! Niger is hot, very very hot. And Niger is big, so very very big - thousands of miles of barren scrub and desert. As a result there were times in Niger where I felt I was on the road to nowhere. For those of you that have been following my blogs regularly there is news about the political situation in Niger. I'm quoting here from IRINnews.org IRIN is a project of the UN office for the co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "Niamey, 20 April 2005. The government of Niger has struck a deal with a civic movement that brought the country to a standstill with a series of strikes and demonstrations at a new tax on food and essential services. The agreement... exempts flour and milk from a new 19% Value Added Tax ... read more